The French-American Foundation Weekly Brief

France

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy met on Thursday, February 4 in Paris and demonstrated their shared ambition in several areas of cooperation, according to Reuters. Notably, France will support Germany in its efforts to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Paris and Berlin put together a list of 80 measures for “ambitious and concrete” projects to reinforce the French-German relationship over the next ten years.

Nearly a decade after Air France’s Concorde Flight 4590 crashed, effectively grounding the legendary supersonic aircraft, US airline Continental and three French aviation officials went on trial on Tuesday, February 2 to start examining conflicting accounts about the causes of the accident. The crash killed 113 people including 100 passengers, nine crew members and four hotel staffers, who died when the aircraft rammed into a hotel two kilometers from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport after catching fire as it left the ground.

The 15th annual report of the Abbé Pierre Foundation published on Monday, February 1 showed that 10.1 million of French people were living in “bad housing” in 2009, Le Figaro reported. Among these people, 3.5 million (15,000 more than in 2008) have no house at all or live in “very bad housing.” The foundation encouraged higher quotas of subsidized housing. On Wednesday, February 3 the French government announced that it would spend €4.7 billion ($6.5 billion) to build 140,000 new low-income homes. According to Le Monde, Secretary of State for Housing Benoist Apparu encourages the French state to buy vacant housing in the Paris metropolitan area, where there would be about 300,000 such units.

The first Air France flight Paris-Baghdad will take off on February, 24 after a hiatus of 20 years. This initiative is in part due to the French government’s efforts to push French firms to be more involved in the reconstruction of Iraq, according to Le Figaro. However, few firms have showed enthusiasm so far, as insecurity remains a major concern in the area. 

A book by French essayist François de Closets reopened the debate on the difficulty of the French spelling. The writer finds it too rigid and thinks there are too many “arbitrary” rules. He ponders over the evolution of French spelling as French students’ spelling gets worse every year. The book caused a stir, especially among many French professors who believe de Closets is choosing the wrong fight: in their view, the real issue is the French education system, which should be revamped.

United States

On Tuesday, February 2, the White House announced President Barack Obama’ plans to meet with the Dalai Lama, in spite of China’s warnings that such a meeting would “undermine” Sino-American relations, The Washington Post reported. The meeting would be “unreasonable” and “useless,” according to Zhu Weiqun, vice minister of the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, Reuters reported.

During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, February 2 on the terror threats, the Obama administration’s Intelligence chiefs warned that Al Qaeda is “certain” to try a major attack on the U.S. in the next 6 months, the New York Daily News reported. “Al-Qaeda maintains its intent to attack the homeland — preferably with a large-scale operation that would cause mass casualties, harm the U.S. economy or both,” Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said, according to The Washington Post.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday, February 3 that members of the Haitian Diaspora living in the United States have responded “en masse” to the Haitian government’s call for help. Groups like the Haitian American Nurses Association, based in Miami, and the Haitian League in New Jersey, have sent dozens of doctors and nurses to help. The Haitian Diaspora is estimated to be of at least two million people, with more than half a million Haitian-born in the United States alone, heavily concentrated in South Florida and Brooklyn. The New York Times explained that the disaster has eased the general antipathy of Haitians towards their expatriates.

The 52nd Grammy Awards ceremony rewarded French artists Phoenix from Versailles, and Parisian DJ David Ghetta, for best alternative music album and best remixed recording. This double victory confirms the popularity of French music in the United States. This growing recognition of contemporary French music can also be seen through the creation of several French musical events, such as the festival “Ooh la L.A.” in Los Angeles that had its first edition in June 2009, Le Figaro reported.

Business

On Monday, February 1 Didier Lombard agreed to step aside as chief executive of France Telecom, Europe’s third-largest telecom operator, The Financial Times reported. Stéphane Richard, his deputy, will take over on March 1. Lombard is credited with helping to revive France Telecom after its flirtation with bankruptcy in 2002 and with introducing new services to slow the decline of its core French fixed-line business. However, he is also blamed by unions for encouraging harsh management practices and hasty modernization plans that contributed to the crisis in morale and a string of suicides in the company.

Pressure on Greece to get its public finances into shape increased on Wednesday, February 3 as the European Union announced tough austerity measures against the country to cut its enormous budget deficit, according to Der Spiegel. The measures include a freeze on salaries in the public sector, a possible increase in the retirement age and a hike in fuel prices. Greece’s budget deficit is more than four times higher than the maximum of 3 percent allowed under euro zone rules.

France wants a ban on the global trade in bluefin tuna, the numbers of which have drastically decreased over the years due to intensive fishing. Before taking such measure, France will wait 18 months, the time needed by scientists to study the data on tuna stocks, French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said. Conservationists say bluefin numbers have fallen to about 15% of their pre-industrial fishing levels according to the BBC.

On Thursday, February 04, Toyota said that it posted a net profit in the final three months of last year, a period before the Japanese top-selling carmaker and third best-selling car in the U.S. was hit by its current global recall of millions of vehicles for defective gas pedals. Despite the recent recalls, Toyota said it expects to sell 150,000 more cars in the fiscal year that ends March 31 than it had initially predicted.  It attributed the turnaround to cost-cutting, a recovery of sales in Asia and North America and government stimulus programs across the world that have spurred the sales of eco-friendly cars, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company said it now expects an 80 billion yen profit for the business year that ends in March (about $900 million), thus revising its previous forecast of a 200 billion yen loss, The New York Times reported. This announcement did not reassure the market as the company stock dropped by nearly 3 percent at the opening of the New York stock market on Thursday, February 4th. According to Le Figaro, one of the reasons for Toyota’s crisis is that the company “tried to expand too fast.”

International

10 U.S. citizens are detained in Haiti for allegedly trying to kidnap 30 children with the intent of bringing them back to the U.S.  The Haitian police said the preliminary investigation showed the group composed of five women and five men had completed none of the administrative procedures for adoption of the children who ranged from 2 months to 12 years old, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Americans are part of a nonprofit Christian ministry and were arrested as they tried to cross the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Le Parisien pointed out that this case is reminiscent of the “Arche de Zoé,” a French charity organization whose members were arrested and accused of abducting 103 African children from Darfur to bring them to France. Most of the children were found to be Chadian and to have at least one living parent or guardian.

Pope Benedict XVI confirmed on Monday, February 1 that he would make the first papal visit to Britain since 1982, while criticizing a planned Equality Bill which he fears may strip churches of the right to turn down applicants for jobs if they are homosexuals or transsexuals. The bill is being discussed in the House of Lords.

On Tuesday, February 3 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that his country would have “no problem” shipping uranium abroad for enrichment, in line with a UN-backed proposal. The plan would see about 70 percent of Iran’s low-enriched uranium taken abroad, reducing the stockpile of material that could be enriched to a higher level and possibly be used to make nuclear weapons. The uranium would be returned to Tehran about a year later as refined fuel rods, which can power reactors but cannot be turned into weapon material. The Iranian President also suggested that Iran would free three jailed U.S. hikers in exchange for Iranians held in U.S. prisons.

NPR reported on Monday, February 1 that the U.K. Government started targeting “binge” drinking by young people, defining it as “one of the most pressing social issues” in Britain. A survey of 23,000 youngsters found that, in some parts of the country, more than a quarter of 11 to 15-year-olds said that they had alcohol at least once in the past week, according to The Daily Mail. Critics have said that statistics are the result of the government’s failure to tackle supermarkets who sell drinks at very low prices.

Three U.S. soldiers involved in training members of Pakistan’s security forces were among seven people killed Wednesday, February 3 by a bomb outside a girl’s school in northwest Pakistan. The school had been destroyed by the Taliban in the past, but recently rebuilt. The Los Angeles Times pointed out that attacks on U.S. military personnel in Pakistan are “extremely rare” as the small number of U.S. troops assigned to Pakistan do not exercise any combat function and are largely tasked with training Pakistani security personnel.

Egypt won their seventh Africa Cup of Nations, beating Ghana 1-0 on Sunday, January 31 in Luanda, Angola, The Independent reported. In this tournament, Egypt won every game they played.

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The views expressed in the preceding press coverage are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the French-American Foundation nor its directors, officers, employees or representatives.